Cannon Smashes GOP Health Bill as Obamacare Lite or Worse

There has likely been no person more focused on undoing the damage done by Obamacare than Cato Institute’s director of health policy studies, Michael Cannon. His research and efforts were instrumental in the numerous court challenges to Obamacare and he has provided America with an ongoing narrative of the bad policy making involved in the Obamacare roll out. Yesterday Cannon turned a bit of his fury on the GOP Obamacare “repeal and replacement” bill. He called it Obamacare Lite – or Worse. Ouch! Not a good start for a Party that has ridden public hatred for Obamacare to take the House (2010), Senate (2014) and most recently the Presidency. Cannon writes:

Everyone needs to take a step back. This bill is a train wreck waiting to happen.

The House leadership bill isn’t even a repeal bill. Not by a long shot. It would repeal far less of ObamaCare than the bill Republicans sent to President Obama one year ago. The ObamaCare regulations it retains are already causing insurance markets to collapse. It would allow that collapse to continue, and even accelerate the collapse. Republicans would then own whatever damage ObamaCare causes, such as when the law leaves seriously ill patients with no coverage at all. Congress would have to revisit ObamaCare again and again to address problems they failed to fix the first time around. ObamaCare would consume the rest of Congress’ and President Trump’s agenda. Delaying or dooming other priorities like tax reform, infrastructure spending, and Gorsuch. The fallout could dog Republicans all the way into 2018 and 2020, when it could lead to a Democratic wave election like the one we saw in 2008. Only then, Democrats won’t have ObamaCare on their mind but single-payer.